Beschreibung:
In den letzten Jahren avancierte Korruption zu einem Modethema. An den Tatsachen kann es nicht gelegen haben, denn weder in quantitativer noch qualitativer Hinsicht sind während dieser Zeit Auffälligkeiten zu registrieren gewesen. Offensichtlich und gerade deswegen erklärungsbedürftig erscheint im Nachhinein allein die veränderte gesellschaftliche Wahrnehmung und Bewertung korrupten Verhaltens.
The essay reflects on the initial findings and experiences from a current comparative cultural research project on the perception of corruption in Europe. Starting with the assumption that corruption is a value judgment on certain social phenomena, an empirically substantiated concept of corruption will be identified using the example of Romania as a purported clear case in the context of the post-socialist transformation. In Romania corruption functions as a metaphor of the transformation and as a societal interpretative framework for the transformation crisis. Conversely to the conventional method, this result is taken as an interpretative template for a modern western case. The general opinion on Germany being supposedly clean (not structurally corrupt), which is also supported by the corruption perception index of Transparency International, subsequently appears to be a partial truth, when structural corruption in the political and economic sphere are blended out. In both cases the specific perception and interpretation of corruption proves to be an ideological embellishment of a social practice.